“ONE out, all out!” is the chant coming out of the poor community and coal seam gas hub of Tara, population 3000.

Several families want the same treatment given to six families who were the ringleaders in a five-year fight against CSG. Those six were bought out by QGC, legally gagged from discussing the issue and moved on.

“We are at the stage where we just don’t want to be here any more. We are like the other guys, we just want out,’’ Tara resident John Jenkyn said.

“It’s a bit of a kick in the guts.”

Not far away, Peter McGowan and his partner Kerry McMillan are determined to leave. The struggle to beat the CSG companies is over, as far as they are concerned.

The fight, along with their health, has left them.

“Tara is stuffed,” Mr McGowan said.

They will pack a campervan later this year, lock the doors of their home and walk away, never to return.

The Uniting and Catholic churches have their own concerns about coal seam gas and wanted a moratorium to deal with unanswered questions.

Uniting Church pastor Reverend Graham Slaughter said there were community benefits to CSG and did not want to be overly critical.

“But there is too much happening to too many people for it to be nothing,’’ Mr Slaughter said.

Steve Ansford produces a stack of photos of his son Dusty, 8, covered in rashes and burns as well as suffering a bleeding nose. He puts it down to the effects of CSG on the water they use.

“We are happy for them (the six ringleaders who left) but we are just pissed off that those of us who want to get out can’t,” Mr Ansford said.

Mr Jenkyn and his family live opposite QGC’s Kenya gas field and are surrounded by hundreds of wells. There’s a compressor station 3km away that keeps them awake at night. He is too scared to drink the water from his tanks. They have given up on the vegetable patch, and even cane toads lie dead outside the house after rain.

Residents said the buyout of the six ringleaders was not only an admission by the gas companies that something was wrong at Tara, but also an attempt to silence protests.

A QGC spokesman said there was no admission by the company that something was wrong and the purchase of the properties was to support development and minimise inconvenience to residents.

“There is no evidence to support health complaints,” the spokesman said.

Origin echoed the statements. “We have been producing natural gas safely for many years and our own staff also live and work amid natural gas infrastructure,’’ a company spokesman said.

But Mr Jenkyn said his family has not been able to drink rainwater for nine months because scientific testing of the water he had done showed high levels of cadmium, which can be toxic and affect the liver and lungs. His wife, Jo, sometimes has to wear a gas mask.

Queensland Health has found no link between the symptoms at Tara and CSG.